pravda: the terrible infant blog

(**Note: This list is contained to films that were either produced, financed, or distributed through the traditional studio system -- including the major indie studios -- this being the sample pool that both my viewing habits and my professional life leave me qualified to discuss. I neither saw enough nor have enough knowledge of this year’s trove of foreign and alt-indie films to give them due justice.)-- Just missed the cut: Dope, The Room, Creed, The Look of Silence, Everest.

10. Straight Outta Compton: Both an aural triumph and an emotional rollercoaster of nostalgia for a generation brought up on the West Coast’s gangster rap revolution. Couple that with a troupe of young actors who poured their hearts out to the screen and I was sold.

9. The Martian: In an age where we have to sit through invincible superheroes saving the world from intergalactic annihilation on a weekly basis, two things become strikingly evident: Firstly, there’s not enough sci-fi driven by non-super-power-enabled human characters with realistic stakes. Secondly, there sure as hell aren’t enough original stories. Here’s a movie that gives us both in breathtaking fashion. The best space movie since Moon.

8. The Hateful Eight: Everything you either love or hate about Tarantino rolled up and hyper-exaggerated in every direction. Whether or not you think the gratuitous violence and circumlocutory narrative choices are necessary, there is no denying Tarantino is a master of tension, character, and the spoken word. Historical fiction is best when the period is used to evoke contemporary relevance; In that, The Hateful Eight succeeds as an uncomfortably accurate reflection of America’s fractures and factions today.

7. Mad Max: Fury Road: This was a blitzkrieg of visual and practical ambition from start to finish. But most importantly, it showed us what summer movies not only could be, but should be. You and I and everyone else should feel ripped off after this movie. Not by Fury Road, but by all the lazy mediocrity coated in shiny aluminum being shoved down our throats. If George Miller could do this with a $150-million production budget, what in the fuck are these $200-million reboots and Marvel and DC budgets going towards? We have been brainwashed into believing a two-hour commercial for a brand-marketed product is filmmaking. I hope Mad Max woke us up. Kudos to Warner Bros for taking a risk.

6. Sicario: Denis Villeneuve brings his trademark darkness to the brutal war being waged at the border. What the film lacked in script cohesion it won back with the sheer force of will of its direction and its leads. Of course, Benicio Del Toro stole the show as he always does. Also, to the person who can get me a date with Emily Blunt, I will happily be your humble servant into perpetuity.

5. Steve Jobs: This was delightfully not a traditional biopic (is that fad over yet?), but rather a three-act play, with Steve Jobs used simply as a conduit for Aaron Sorkin to paint an original masterpiece about ambition and perfection and responsibility and the human drive for success. Stuffing the conflict of an entire biography into three theatrical showcases of Mise-en-Scène might not be true to life, but it sure as hell is true to a little thing we call drama.

4. The Big Short: In Adam McKay’s first foray into “serious” movies, he deftly balances humor and incredulous condemnation with the help of amazing performances from the entire cast. To make a film as funny and engrossing as this, out of source material that consists of an ensemble of nerds, no real villain, and CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligations) & CDS’s (Credit Default Swaps) as the subject matter, is a monumental achievement in itself.

3. The End of the Tour: Jason Segal’s best performance…ever? Based off David Lipsky’s Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, the movie walks an impressive tightrope between accurately representing David Foster Wallace and recognizing the authors own restraints about adoration (although I guess he would probably never want anyone to make a movie about himself, but oh well). Plus, that combo vulnerable-yet-acrid face that Jesse Eisenberg perfected in The Social Network works wonders in his portrayal of David Lipsky, simultaneously juxtaposing the revered admiration of a novelist and the cold, calculated duplicity of a journalist over the course of his interviews. Whether you are a writer, a reader, or simply a person with a thoughtful heart and mind, you may find yourself profoundly moved by this.

2. The Revenant: This could be the most aesthetically beautiful film I’ve ever seen. Cold, brutal, and unrelenting. I felt cold to my very core from start to finish, in the same sense that watching Apocalypse Now and Platoon made me sweat profusely for hours in my air-conditioned room. And Leo. Oh, Leo. Mark my words, if he does not win an Oscar for this performance, I will go out and vote for Donald Trump. It will be the only way to accept a world that makes that little of sense.

1. Ex Machina: Am I biased because I have a hard-on for Alex Garland? Yes. And am I biased because of the male-centric psychological explorations of the film? Probably. But that doesn’t change the fact that this was everything I could ever want in a movie: Smart, savvy, contemporary, philosophical, fun, and dark as hell in its study of morality, (male) sexuality, and consciousness. Garland’s best work since his debut novel, The Beach.